NY-23: Democrats double-down in fight for Reed's seat at Monday forum

Ithaca's State Theatre was bustling Monday night, with hundreds filling the theater to watch a discussion between the Democratic candidates vying for Republican Rep. Tom Reed's seat in Congress representing New York's 23rd Congressional District.

At the forum - sponsored by the Tompkins County Democratic Committee, Tompkins County Progressives, Cornell University Democrats, IBEW Local 241, the Reedjectors and Indivisible Southern Tier & Fingerlakes NY - six of the seven candidates discussed their policy views on a wide range of topics, as well as their election strategies to unseat Reed, the incumbent in the historically Republican-leaning district since 2010.

Six of NY-23's seven democratic candidates talked policy and strategy at a Monday forum at Ithaca's ...more

Six of NY-23's seven democratic candidates talked policy and strategy at a Monday forum at Ithaca's State Theatre.

Sarah Mearhoff / staff photo

New York's 23rd congressional district stretches east-to-west from Tioga County to Lake Erie, and north-to-south from Ontario County to the Pennsylvania border.

In a straw poll conducted following the forum, candidate Tracy Mitrano won with more than three times the votes as the next highest-polling candidate. As announced by the Tompkins County Democratic Committee Tuesday morning, Mitrano won with 297 votes. Next was Max Della Pia, with 80 votes.

Ithaca's State Theatre was packed with hundreds of audience members to watch NY-23's seven ...more

Ithaca's State Theatre was packed with hundreds of audience members to watch NY-23's seven democratic candidates speak at Monday's forum and straw poll.

Sarah Mearhoff / staff photo

RESULTS OF MONDAY'S NY-23 DEMOCRATIC STRAW POLL

Tracy Mitrano: 297

Max Della Pia: 80

Ian Golden: 69

Linda Andrei: 64

Eddie Sundquist: 38

Charles Whalen: 22

Rick Gallant: Not in attendance

Here are the highlights from each candidate during the nearly two-hour forum:

On government spending for the military versus for social programs: "I think we have spent enough money on war. We need to bring those young people home. We need to give them jobs. We need to rebuild our infrastructure. We need to move into the 21st Century with solar power, wind power, geothermal power and they will have enough work and we will have enough money to support that work. Our soldiers around the world that are defending oil fields and bring corporate interest need to come home, fix our roads, fix our pipes, and we can do that if we shift defense spending to social spending."

On the risk of sacrificing jobs in coal and natural gas industries for greener energy sources: "It shows the desperation of middle class for jobs and opportunity that they would consider sacrificing or compromising our greatest legacy to our children and our grandchildren, our clean water and our clean air and our beautiful landscape and a livable climate. If you send me to Congress, I will make sure that that is not the choice that we’re giving our people in the district. We want to invest in infrastructure – not to build a large wall on the southern border of the United States – but provide infrastructure that provides clean energy, green infrastructure, broadband access across the district. All those things that if we spend money, if we’re going to deficit spend, let’s spend it on something that will give a present value and a future value. The present value: $2 to $3 trillion of infrastructure is required to rebuild. If we spend $1 billion, we can expect 25,000 to 30,000 direct jobs, good paying jobs, done by workers here. And that will allow us to be more competitive and provide small business and businesses in this area the tools they need to be competitive in a global marketplace."

Gallant was unable to attend the forum, but a friend, unrelated to the campaign, read Gallant's prepared closing statements: “I believe that as a nation, we are at a crossroads. This is our moment to take back our government. This is our moment to make the changes that we want to see. This is our moment to do what’s right for the people. As a lifelong teacher, I understand the needs of communities, of families. I see their struggles, and am frustrated that our representatives have turned their backs on them. I am disheartened that families are forced to choose whether to take their child to the doctor or pay their rent for that month. I am angry that instead of standing up for hard-working people of this district, the current representative instead is beholden to big insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. They care more about their bottom line than the lives of the people. It is time to change that. We deserve better."

On running against an incumbent, likely with greater financial resources: "I think it’s a very real issue. I think it’s very challenging running in very full primary. I think the dynamics of this race are different than in campaign cycles prior. I think the hope of all of us is whoever gets through this campaign, that we’re all reaching a much larger audience than any one of us could and that we’re all going to really rally behind and be a really effective, collective force behind whoever our nominee is. But it’s tough. Campaigns are expensive…. We need more money, we need more donations to really be effective. That’s just the reality. I think we need to own that we’re not raising enough collectively. That’s for sure a risk. But we all need to do the best we can to grow our grassroots network, to build the base, and we don’t need to go toe-to-toe with dollars with Tom Reed. We just need to raise enough to get our message out there and to build an effective-enough ground campaign to get it done."

On Second Amendment rights and gun regulation: "First, I think we’d do well to look at research about why it is that the United States has more mass murders than other country in world. It turns out, there’s one factor. It’s not video games, and it’s not mental illness. It’s the availability of so many guns. And so with that as foundation – and by the way, the country that has the next largest number of mass murders is Yemen, and they are in the middle of a civil war, so that speaks to something about this country that we need to seriously inspect and discuss. Now I am against the SAFE Act because I have read the law and I recognize it discriminates against people with mental illness, enforcement-wise, it’s taking databases and lunging them in such way that I think violates privacy, and as a general matter, is overly broad-written law, which is not a good law to have on the books. But at the federal level – because the SAFE Act is a state law – at the federal level, we have to have those background checks but let’s start phasing in system of licensing users and registering guns and we will get at the number one issue of why the problem exists. We will bring down number of available guns in our society overall."

On uniting democrats for the 2018 elections: "When I think about this question – what’s the message that Democrats should have across this election cycle for 2018 – I always look to see: What are the Republicans saying? And the Republicans are saying, ‘Oh, the democrats are split. There’s still a divide between Hillary and Bernie. The reality is, we need to move forward. The reality is, although we as democrats may have diff ideologies, we have one thing in common, and that’s coming together and representing everyone. We don’t leave one person behind, unlike the Republicans, who tend to want to split you up, and tend to want to go to one extreme, then the other. When I think of a message for Democrats in 2018, I think of the fact that we are going to be coming together. We’re going to be working with one another. And even though we may have slightly different ideologies, the reality is, we all want the same thing: to protect the people that we have here, to protect every single person in our community and in our neighborhoods. And when we have that message and we carry it along across this district and our nation, that’s how we take this blue wave. That’s how we take the House back."

On the opioid epidemic: "There are things that are complicated and there are complicated aspects of this, but there’s one thing that’s really, really clear: A lot of companies pushed things they knew were more dangerous than they indicated and we should go after them as hard as you would go after drug-pushers on a playground. Second, treatment is much less expensive than imprisonment, so we should do that. And third, economic revitalization is important because a family-supporting job gives hope and a lot of times – not always, but a lot of times – people get into a cycle of drugs because of a lack of hope. One of the proposals that I have is actually a jobs program that would ensure a job for anyone who is willing and able to work in our district or anywhere around the country, and we can do that and it’s about half the price of incarcerating someone."